


came off the assembly line flat-out fucked

by oonaseckar



Category: Avengers (Comics), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Anhedonia, Dissociation, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2019-12-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:14:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22036120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oonaseckar/pseuds/oonaseckar
Summary: Bucky is broken.  Just how broken, Steve is about to find out.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Steve Rogers, James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	came off the assembly line flat-out fucked

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter title from Agents of SHIELD.  
> Work title from Elizabeth Wurtzel.

But why is all the pain necessary? This is the question that sometimes preoccupies him. Surely it weakens the organism? And a weakened organism is a less efficient organism?

HYDRA has no procedure –- yet –- that will _completely_ shut down thought processes beyond the raw, bare minimum necessary for a mission. The Asset is aware of this, and that it is less of a gift than an unfortunate inefficiency, a waste of heat, ATP, glucose and the brain cells' wear and tear. Still, he follows every train of thought that offers, avid like a dog following the scent of a bitch in heat. That's not to say he understands his own eagerness: It's not colored with emotion, there's no positive affect that entails upon the successful unraveling of a logical thread. Any such reaction is shut down almost immediately, well-trained as a Pavlovian dog.

Anhedonia is his unnatural but permanent state, barring brief blips that he cannot understand, responses to triggers that HYDRA cannot shut out of his experience completely. But even a pleasureless slave will revel in the small spaces of freedom he is carelessly allowed. No, not _allowed_ : they have only failed to quite shut off every such avenue. Lord knows, if they could then they would.

These are the musings he is engaging in, waiting at a window for the opening, the moment to strike and to kill.

Order through pain, he thinks, but nothing could be more orderly than the Asset.


End file.
